'City of Glass 41 - (T.H.E.T.O.W.E.R.O.F.B.A.B.E.L.)'

SEPTEMBER 26

Babel rises….built brick by brick.  A new Babel in New York. In the spirit of the novel, each brick/canvas contains one of the letters that spell THETOWEROFBABEL, hidden in the real or imagined grid of New York, ‘fact’ and ‘fiction’ once again intermingled.  As I have mentioned before, what is exciting about this piece is the flexibility offered by the rearrangement of the bricks. Perhaps the new Babel will look more like the arrangement below, from this years Open Studios....

This painted tower was always intended as the centerpiece of the series, the finale, the idea was always lurking in the background. However, after a break of a few months there are new ideas and memories of half-explored ideas, unresolved. The ‘City of Glass’ series goes on….

SEPTEMBER 25

For greater clarity, I have given this piece different number 41, with each individual brick/canvas/letter numbered in sequence 42-56

APRIL 2

A very short session in the studio- one thought, one tool, one colour, one action, one line....the Tower is complete.  Looking forward to a day off with the family.

The extension of the line works for me, fading out towards the edge....I have really enjoyed making this piece- not least because it has forced me to work in the landscape format and on smaller canvases (25x30cms), where changes can be made very rapidly. While enjoying looking at the Tower, the downside is that each individual brick/letter/canvas is undervalued and hard to see. I think some of the paintings are as good as anything I have done, especially the later canvases so I am going to give each a City of Glass number to recognize their quality. It might take away a bit of the fun of working out the letters but perhaps they are obvious anyway....

City of Glass 56 - (T)

APRIL 1

Reflection: I'm seeing the painting in a different light- it's the New York canyon thing,...fiery sun... it's aerial view and image and a letter and the final brick..Now for the final arrangement...  

A long session in the studio, the Tower is one mark away from completion. The horizontal needs to extend further across the painting, almost to the right edge. It was there but the falling paint took it away.  A necessary subtle, subtle line to counteract all those verticals, a cut or the edge of a blade...

Small painting, big mess...

MARCH 31 p.m.

A looser, more flamboyant painting, I usually have Manhattan on the vertical, but this time I've using the natural 60 degree angle. It's undeniable - I must have been thinking about the terrific Mali Morris painting on Paul Behnke's recent post in Structure and Imagery. Thanks to you both!

Having a look again: leaving the gap between the 2 angled lines of the grid is critical, keeping it open, an entrance to the painting. It's done. 

City of Glass 55 - (A)

MARCH 31

When you look into the nothing what do you see?

I am just enjoying this painting as sensation, colour, peace, that beautiful central divide when i went back in with the colour. In terms of context, the painting is based on a 'real' district of New York, but there is the ambiguity to enjoy of what is water, what is land....

City of Glass 54 - (E)

MARCH 30 

I was seeing these colours in my sleep - in the studio at 5 this morning. Magenta+ Emerald Green + a bit of Hookers Green + White has made 'Lush Lilac' and an orangey Indian Yellow/Cadmium yellow mix. The single line de-flattens the space and offers an escape... two bricks/letters to go...

Went to Charlestown today, to escape from my cave. The Tower was still in my thoughts-  I was looking at mortar between the bricks of the harbour walls!. Love the reduction and the colour and the purity and the emptiness in this latest painting.

MARCH 29

City of Glass 53 - (O)

Q: When is a square not a square?   A: When it is a double-square

The excitement builds getting towards the completion of the Tower, hopefully by the end of the week.

'The building of the Tower became the obsessive , overriding passion of mankind, more important finally than life itself. Bricks became more precious than people. Women labourers did not even stop to give birth to their children; they secured the newborn in their aprons and went right on working' (P: 44, 'The New York Trilogy)     Quite!

MARCH 28

City of Glass 52 - (O)

Denise suggested the colour- scheme for the new 'brick' - pink and pale grey. Might tidy up the bottom and have the circle truly balanced on the line. The circle feels as if it might roll off to the right but maybe that brings a tension to the piece. Imperfect circles are best - Trevor Bell is the master. 

MARCH 26

City of Glass 51 - (W)

'Brick 10' has been a battle - I've just spent five hours in the studio trying stuff out, looking for a stronger, purer painting. I was bugged by being able to see the stretcher behind the paint on the left in (2) and needed to know whether the point of the triangle should touch the bottom of the canvas. I think (2) and the final painting work in different ways but I believe I've made a better painting. (2) is more decorative, busier, but the painting above has a strength in the drawing and the more intriguing space. I particularly like how the purple triangle sits on the line and its relationship with the pale-yellow corner.  The softer edges too against the severity of the scored lines. It's an uncompromising piece. 

The scored line was technically difficult- drawn by hand in one go with no room for error and because of the thickness of the paint, there is was a build up of excess paint around the sides which had to removed afterwards with a knife.  A pure freeing mark- if it went wrong I would have to remake a flat surface again, losing the unique combination of colours and marks underneath. 

Underneath? Where exactly is the line? The not knowing makes the painting interesting. 

The composition and the key elements have remained from the first session (1) The angled paint is critical as it mirrors the angled streets of the district. The purple triangle is a specific detail that cuts the horizontal of the street and of course the 'W' is one of the letters in THETOWEROFBABEL. Within these parameters I've made a painting.

I hope my daughter Faye likes it- she was upset when I started to make changes.  I like how the painting is, I think I can leave it. Like the building of the original Tower of Babel, this piece has become all obsessive - five 'bricks' to go. I have the locations for the remaining letters- lets see what happens. 

MARCH 25 

2

Possibly a new 'brick', maybe make the scratched angled line more precise. Found a new colour, Faye said it was one of those colours you can't name but she has come up with Kinda Cornish as it is a real sea-colour. Triangles (and letters) everywhere in this part of New York. 

1

MARCH 24

 I couldn't wait- I took off the blue paint with a knife allowing the underneath greens to come through. A vertical mark instead of a block of colour. I still need to straighten the edge. I've also taken out the scratched triangle at the bottom to allow the deep,deep violet to flood through the right side. A little bit of crisp drawing at the top of the column brings clarity and a suggestion of architecture....

City of Glass 50 - (T)

A good session- I've been  looking forward to introducing a dark 'brick' into the tower to shake things up. Might put a dark blue glaze over the column on the right to push it back into the painting at the same time simplifying the composition. Got to wait a few days 'til it's dry. I also want to straighten the edge- it was straight but the paint slid off!

MARCH 21-22

I like all three versions but particularly the whimsical feel of the final painting - the spinning wheel of the strange contraption held by the dark line. Just. Denise and Peggy (from Modern Artists Gallery) see a face...Although upright, it is also a 'real' location in New York...

Version 1 is very graphic but I felt the letter was too centered and too obvious. I do like the mysterious dark space though. Version 2 was nearly a contender- very sculptural, very still, pure and austere, but with too much downward movement.

City of Glass 49 - (R)

Version 2

Version 1

MARCH 17

City of Glass 48 - (E)

The version below was too static, the letter too blatant. The purple line, above, weighted at the bottom, the tiny-angled purple line, and some vertical brushstrokes have transformed this painting - it's much more complex and intriguing. 

MARCH 16

'Another brick (letter) in the wall....'

City of Glass 47 - (E)

'Another brick (letter) in the wall....'

City of Glass 46 - (L)

In the recent City of Glass paintings, the Tower of Babel, the central image from the novel*, has been neglected....In this piece, each small painting, 25x35cms,  becomes a brick in the Tower. In the spirit of the novel, each 'brick' will contain one of the fifteen letters that spell THETOWEROFBABEL, some obvious, some more obscure. 

Further exploring the blurrings of 'fact' and 'fiction' in the novel and in the series, some of the 'bricks' are based on the street-grid of Manhattan, others are pure invention - they could be part of the grid. It is for the viewer to become detective to make these discoveries....

Manhattan is dismantled, fragmented, rearranged. There is a discipline: if one of the paintings/bricks happens to sell, I am obliged to replace it, find another way to paint the missing letter. 

In this way the piece is renewed, kept fresh. I am looking forward to arranging the finished 'bricks'. Because of the infinite number of combinations, the piece need never appear the same twice. The 'new' Babel in New York may not be necessarily ziggurat-shaped....

This piece is for Geoff Rigden, who sadly passed away recently. Geoff taught me at Canterbury and set me on the road to becoming a painter, He often came to my Open Studios in London, and was very generous and perceptive in his comments about my work, opening my eyes to the possibilities in painting. Although, you don't normally associate 'image' with Geoff's painting, I hope that each individual panel contains something of the serious playfulness of his work. 

The 'bricks' below may change, though I hope by not too much. 

City of Glass 45 - (H)

City of Glass 44 - (F)

City of Glass 43 - (B)

City of Glass 42 - (B)

*'The New York Trilogy', a novel by Paul Auster

'City of Glass 9 - Fiction & Fact' 120x200cms

The painting was resolved and the two sides pulled together when I put in the blue-grey drip/vertical in the right-side painting.  The drip stopped in the perfect position. Love the division line between the canvases and the power of the pink dot (which is no longer an attention seeker but an incident in the whole). The other dots/perforations were repainted to bring back their shape & clarity and reinforce the idea of the opened notebook. Curiously, by putting in the long blue/grey vertical there was no need to extend the pink horizontal from the left side into the right. The eye picks up and connects the existing horizontals and the repeated motif of the large rectangular block of Central Park. The eye is tricked, the large blue rectangle is not Central Park, (which is of course the large orange rectangle to the right). The blue/grey line is just enough to suggest a building and moving across the painting into the left-side, the orange rectangle of Central Park becomes an almost identical building ( the Twin Towers?) and the left side can be read as architecture/buildings/skyline- buildings that are there but not there.  The verticality of New York implied in the grid pattern of the streets. There is an interesting feel about this piece: scale, orientation/viewpoint are all subverted and ambiguous. Painted facts and painting truth derived from fiction.

The letters that spell T..H..E..T..O..W..E..R..O..F..B..A..B..E..L  are all there on the right 'Fact' side - map-truth (though it depends which map you are looking at), letters that are there but not there-looking for them turns the viewer into a detective. On the left 'Fiction' side, I had intended to transcribe the letters invisibly written by Stillman's walks, superimposing them on top of each other & spiralling around their start-point, the Hotel Harmony. However, once I put down the grid and the painting started to develop, this seemed unnecessary, with the off-straight purple line, the drip that misbehaved (and the missing cross-streets) providing the fiction.  I am certain the original idea will re-emerge in another piece with a simpler background.  There is a rawness about the paint on this side but this is tempered by the discipline of the grid.

There are links to the other paintings in the series, particularly 'City of Glass 2-Hotel Harmony' where a section of the Upper West Side, with the curve of Broadway, sits alongside Manhattan. Also 'City of Glass 4- Truthville N.Y' where the dot of Truthville balances on top of the Tower.   While Paul Auster's 'New York Trilogy' is the inspiration for the painting, I am also indebted to Mondrian - I have long admired the purity and beauty of his later works, their asymmetric balance and the exquisiteness of their execution. I can also see connections with some beautiful books made by artist Ruth McDonald, about her journeys in Cornwall and Kent, that I saw recently.

The next piece will explore Paul Auster's layers of identity. There will be a figure(!) -Stillman- who will be covered by six layers of human shadows of increasing size representing Max Work, (Quinn's fictional detective whose persona Quinn adopts on his assignment), William Wilson (the pseudonym Quinn uses for his detective fiction, Quinn himself,  author Paul Auster, myself, the artist and finally the viewer. Ideally, this piece to be lit in such a way that the actual shadow of the viewer is superimposed on the shadows in the painting.

Already I can see the shoulder of the figure jammed up alongside and following the curve of Broadway..............

I was looking for a description of Stillman in the novel for my painting - tall,white-haired, a long shabby brown overcoat and then today met some friends in Falmouth and Simon was wearing.............a long shabby brown overcoat. Took some pics..a perfect Stillman (not that Simon Bor is old or white-haired!). Strangely, I have used a similar figure before: on a red hot day on Blackpool promenade I saw an elderly gentleman in an overcoat, scarf and hat. I named him Harold Parkinson and he appeared in several paintings in the early eighties. Love these connections. 

'City of Glass 9 (Fiction & Fact)' - work in progress

 

The painting is getting closer after a week in the studio but the balance is not right yet between freedom and control. There is not enough range in the paint, not enough movement or precision.  At this stage, the idea- finding the letters of T..H..E..T..O..W..E..R..O..F..B..A..B..E..L..in the streetmap of New York- is stronger than the execution.  I found my 'R' at last! I do like the spaces towards the edges though, flanking Manhattan. Not sure about the palette either- for the first time in many years in places I have used a tube-black instead of my own mix and those areas seem a bit dead. I'll put a coloured glaze on top and also use a glaze to break down and soften the edge around Manhattan.  There is also the problem of familiarity/similarity but I am sure this will go away when I work the on the the left side of the diptch -(the 'fiction' side, with the letters formed by Stillman's walks in the novel)  The piece will read as an opened book, fiction and fact side by side.

 

It is a curious phenomena- the painting looks stronger online than in reality.

Work in progress: 'City of Glass 9- Fiction & Facts'

In progress- 'City of Glass 9: Fiction & Facts'

'L'

'O'

During the final session of 'City of Glass 6', it struck me that one of the piers at the southern tip of Manhattan resembled the letter 'L'. Then I remembered painting the perfect 'O' of  Madison Square Garden, introduced to the painting as a subtle 'maverick element'. The excitement grew and the idea for a new piece took hold, reconfirming the magic of working in series with the paintings feeding each other.

The most striking image in the novel, 'City of Glass', is that of Stillman, by the means of his daily walks, invisibly writing the words T.H.E  T.O.W.E.R. O.F. B.A.B.E.L. onto the streets of New York.

What if, instead of the fiction, all the letters of 'The Tower of Babel', actually existed in the 'facts' of the streets of New York? Some were easy to find, like 'A' in the angled intersections of Broadway, others, like 'B' and the 'W' (Greenwich Village) more difficult to find. I still have to find an 'R' but am confident it is there. I love the connection with the spirit of the novel and the other paintings in the series, that of a building being there but not there.

At this point, the idea is stronger than the painting- I want the letters to have a neon-glow- but this will be resolved. 'Detectives' was my original title for the series and is both the central theme of the novel and the paintings. In the novel, Quinn, a writer of detective-fiction, - by accident, design,chance,choice?- becomes a real detective. In turn, myself, the artist, becomes a detective, looking for ideas, images, inspiration in Paul Auster's words. Then the viewer becomes a detective, following my clues and visual notes and language in order to understand each piece, and in this painting the viewer will emulate Quinn and follow the letters and find the Tower of Babel.